


Rebirth

by FlannelGuy51



Category: The X-Files
Genre: (this is the most niche thing ever but I literally don’t care), Bertram Byers is a Terrible Father, Bisexual Melvin Frohike, Bisexual Susanne Modeski, Coming Out, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode: s05e03 Unusual Suspects, Gay Richard “Ringo” Langly, Gen, Gender Dysphoria, John Byers Gets a Hug, John Byers Needs a Hug, Non-Binary Richard “Ringo” Langly, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Episode: s05e03 Unusual Suspects, Trans Character, Trans Fox Mulder, Trans John Byers, Trans Male Character, Transphobia, because apparently all I can do is write coming out fics, but not yet
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-22
Updated: 2020-10-28
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:12:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27145727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlannelGuy51/pseuds/FlannelGuy51
Summary: John Fitzgerald Byers has never felt like he belonged anywhere, partially because he’s never known who he really was. From college to his first meeting with the people who would eventually become his family, Byers is beginning to discover who he is and who he wants to be. It’s a difficult journey, full of ups and downs, but more people are there for him than he knows.OR: Byers is trans and over the course of these six chapters he’s gonna figure that out.
Relationships: John Byers & Melvin Frohike & Richard "Ringo" Langly
Comments: 3
Kudos: 6
Collections: Trans Mulder Literary Universe





	1. A Brown Suit

**Author's Note:**

  * For [salvabon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/salvabon/gifts).



> Hello! Welcome to my self-indulgent X-Files fest! Today on the menu we have trans Byers, a headcanon I never thought I’d have for a character I never thought I would be so attached to. And yet, here we are! Mack—I hope you enjoy the first part of my rendition of the headcanons we’ve been talking non-stop about. Here’s to many more.
> 
> TW: Some physical abuse of a father to his son.

Byers sat at his desk, frantically typing up a paper for the Monday’s economics class. He’d been up half the night working on a separate project for Business, and somewhere around 5am, he’d fallen asleep. When he’d woken up and found the time to be 12pm, he’d jumped up, terrified he’d missed a lecture, but then he’d remembered that it was Saturday. Too bad he couldn’t take the day off.

And too bad Carol wasn’t here. Carol Strode, his wonderful, hilarious roommate. They’d clicked from the very first day they’d met each other. Byers had been thankful for that; he’d always had some trouble making friends. This weekend, though, Carol was at home visiting her family. She had been dreading it, which Byers could understand. While his mom was lovely, his dad had always been a little...intense.

Byers remembered his senior prom, the dance he hadn’t even had a date for but had gone to anyway. At the last minute, he’d decided to pull out one of his father's old suits to take. Dresses had never sat with him well, but he couldn’t for the life of him understand why that was. Seeing himself in one made his skin crawl, as if dozens of tiny bugs were worming their way up his body and towards his throat to choke him. But a senior prom was supposed to be special, and Byers was determined that his would be.

He’d looked in the mirror after pulling his father’s tie tight and gaped. There he stood, tall in this brown tweed suit, as his body buzzed with delight. Something had clicked in his brain in that moment, some sense of self he’d never had before. It was like some great gap in his identity had been bridged, and he was finally taking the first step across. Byers had never felt so alive.

The bridge had crumbled the second Byers had stepped into the living room.

“What are you wearing?!” his father had yelled at him, striding over and grabbing him roughly by the shoulders.

“Y-Your suit,” Byers had replied.

His father slapped him then, and Byers yelped, taking a few steps backwards. It wasn’t the first time his father had slapped him for doing something wrong, and it wouldn’t be the last.

“You’ll never make it as a government worker acting like that,” Bertram Byers had muttered, looking at his son with utter disgust. “They’ll mark you a lost cause before you even get a word in.  Now go upstairs and put on something of your mother’s.”

Just like that, whatever joy Byers had felt was crushed. His father, his  _ hero,  _ couldn’t stand the sight of him in a suit. But that was fine.

_ I would rather have my father than this suit,  _ Byers thought to himself as he rubbed the sting out of his cheek and ascended the stairs. And so Byers buried whatever little spark he’d felt in his chest when he’d seen himself in that suit and tie, and tried not to think about it every night as he fell asleep.

But that spark was coming back.

Several months ago, Carol had dragged Byers to a party. She was ever the flirt, always after the hottest guy she could get her hands on but never going so far as to take any of them home. Byers found himself more impressed by her passion for the risk of teasing these men than her passion for the men themselves. Byers himself had only ever had feelings for women, but he wasn’t about to tell Carol that. Not yet, anyway.

Somehow (he’d forgotten what she had said to talk him into it), Carol had gotten them both very drunk. At first, Byers was terrified of getting caught underage—what would his mother say if she found out?—but after a couple of drinks, he had no idea what he’d been so worried about.

After mingling for a few hours, Byers and Carol had found their way back to their dorm. As he climbed into bed, Carol started to look at in a funny sort of way.

“What?” Byers had asked her with a smile.

“I just...I trust you,” Carol had replied, following it up with his name. 

Byers had never felt particularly strongly about his name. It had never really felt like his, never something that would define him so much as something he happened to be called. He assumed everyone felt like this.

“Okay?” Byers said, still smiling.

“I’ve been wanting to tell you for some time...I’m, um...transgender.”

“As in you...are...becoming…?”

Carol laughed at him and shook her head, coming to sit on the foot of his bed. “As in, I  _ was  _ a man, but now I’m a woman. Not that I ever really felt like a man, but everyone seemed to think I was one.”

“Oh.”

Byers felt like he’d had the wind knocked out of him. His head was still swimming from the alcohol, but rapidly it was beginning to sober up. Memories he’d forced himself to forget, ones of him calling himself a boy on the playground and asking his mom to cut his hair short and always playing the father in the other girls’ games of house, suddenly flooded him. He saw himself in his father’s suit in the mirror, feeling his chest swell with something new, and tried to breathe.

Suddenly, he realized Carol was calling his name. He shook his head a bit, trying to clear the feelings that were rapidly overtaking him, and met his best friend’s eyes.

“What?” Byers asked, trying to remain calm.

“I said, is that okay?”

Byers saw the worry in Carol’s eyes, the way her fingers were clutching the bedsheets for something to hold on to.

Byers smiled warmly and placed his hand on hers. “Of course.”

Carol had promptly wrapped him into a tight hug and thanked him. Byers wanted to tell her she didn’t need to thank him, to ask her a million questions of how she knew and how she transitioned and how her family had taken it. He wanted to ask if she was happier now. But instead Byers had simply told her she was loved before turning off the lights in the dorm and staring at the ceiling. 

Ever since, Byers couldn’t stop thinking about the way his friend seemed to simply exist. Carol was  _ Carol,  _ herself in a way Byers had never known himself to be. Everything she did was with confidence, whereas every step Byers made towards being himself made him feel a bit more in the dark.

Every time Byers watched Carol laugh or tell a story to someone she hardly knew, something inside of him began to pound against his chest, screaming to be set free. That something looked a lot like his father’s brown suit.

As Byers stared at the keys on the typewriter, he felt that little something bouncing around his head even more than usual, making his mind drift far from the boring statistics in his Economics assignment. He found himself thinking of that suit, the way he looked in it in the mirror, and suddenly he smiled.

Byers was going to tell Carol about it. She would know what to do.

Just as he’d made his decision and was finally getting back to his work, the door to the dorm opened and slammed shut. Carol was home early?

“Carol!” Byers called excitedly, standing up and turning to greet his friend.  _ Oh no. _

Mascara was running down Carol’s face and she looked terrible, her dress crinkled as if she’d slept in it and her hair all askew.

“Carol, what’s wrong?” Byers asked, walking towards her and stretching out his arms for a hug. 

She moved right past him, throwing open their shared closet and beginning to pull her clothes out of it. “I’m so sorry, but I have to leave.”

“What? What do you mean you have to leave?”

Carol turned to look at him, her eyes filled with regret. She smiled sadly as she said his name. For the first time, Byers noticed that he hated it. “My brother, Jeff...he told everyone.”

“Told everyone what?” Byers asked, but he was terrified that he already knew.

Her shuddering breath only confirmed it. “That I’m...that I used to be who I used to be. My friends know, my teachers know,  _ everyone  _ knows. He made sure he didn’t miss a single one of them.”

Byers found his own hands shaking as he sat down in his chair. “But why?”

“He’s hated me ever since I became who I was,” Carol replied, grabbing more shirts from the closet. “Jeff has always resented me for stealing away his older brother and replacing him with his real sister. I should’ve known he would do this, but I guess I just...I didn’t think he could be so cruel.”

Byers rubbed his cheek on instinct, almost feeling his father slap him again. The shouting and the pain didn’t hurt as badly as the crushing realization that his father couldn’t stand his true self, a realization now thrown at him tenfold. If Carol’s own brother could destroy her happiness, her whole life, then what was stopping his father from destroying his?

Carol left again just as soon as she’d arrived, leaving him with nothing but a number to reach her at and kiss on the cheek. That feeling of self, that hope for the future that Byers had felt just moments before, was lost once again. Carol was the only person he’d been sure he could tell, but after knowing that her own brother would out her to everyone, Byers was sure he could never tell anybody. He could never have that suit, never cut his hair, never lose his clothes, never change his name. He was destined to live as who he was born as, because if he didn’t, his life wouldn’t be anything at all.

_ I would rather have my life than that suit,  _ Byers thought absently. So he pushed away the memories, those of his childhood and his father and even his best friend, and started again on his Economics paper.

Byers spent his next two years at college without a roommate—or a friend.


	2. No More Lies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ever since Carol left, Byers has been running from himself as fast as he can go. A mysterious woman is about to change everything. (Episode: s05e03 Unusual Suspects)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is literally just a trans version of Unusual Suspects. I didn’t mean for it to be nearly 11k words long but oh well I suppose! I also didn’t mean for this to be so episode-heavy, but I really love Byers/Susanne so I had to. Enjoy this character study in trans icon John Fitzgerald Byers.
> 
> PS to Mack—I hope this was worth the wait ❤️

Byers stood at his booth, watching the hundreds of people at the computers and electronics convention mill about. The people there ranged from kids scoping out the latest technology to old people just trying to work out what this new-fangled techno fad was. When his boss had asked for volunteers to run the FCC booth, Byers had jumped at the opportunity. He was always happy to meet the public that he was so intent on helping. Unsurprisingly, he was the only one to volunteer.

That’s how he’d ended up here with Ken, on his feet for the fifth hour in a row since the convention had started at 8am while the other man played video games. Byers was tired, hungry, and most of all, uncomfortable. The dress he was wearing made his skin crawl, but his boss had insisted that he wear something more feminine than the pantsuits he sported at the office. _Feminine_ as in attract as many older men to the booth as possible and try to get the FCC’s message across to them while they ogled Byers in ways he didn’t even want to think about. Never mind the fact that Byers hadn’t managed to attract the attention of anybody, save the few passers by angry enough to call him a narc and the one who had been so upset that she’d spit in his face.

Overall, it was turning out to be a pretty shitty day. Still, Byers tried to put on a smile for everyone who glanced in his direction. He only ever wanted to appear friendly.

As Byers continued to look around the for anyone he might be able to attract to his station, he suddenly saw the most beautiful woman he’d ever laid eyes on. Her blonde hair fell to her shoulders, not a single strand askew. Her black jacket cut low enough to tease, and her short skirt made Byers feel a certain kind of way. She was gorgeous, and she was confident, and she was headed straight for him.

Distantly, Byers knew he should be pulling himself together. For God’s sake, he was a government worker, and he had to be  _ professional.  _ But when she took off her sunglasses to reveal ocean-blue eyes, he fumbled.

“Would you like a b-button?” Byers asked, hands shaking a bit as he held up his jar of buttons declaring “We’re Your FCC!” in big yellow letters. He couldn’t take his eyes off of her, and that terrified him.

“I…” the woman whispered, seeming to stare into his soul. And then she turned and walked away.

Byers blinked for a moment, entirely unsure of what had just happened. The woman had only been there for a few seconds, and yet something was clutching at his heart. There had been a fear in those eyes, a call for help that she couldn’t quite voice. He realized, with a start, that the woman reminded him of Carol Stride. Byers only had to think for a moment about the way his old roommate had left their dorm for the last time still in tears, and then he was moving from the table.

“Ken,” Byers said to his so-called “partner” at the computer, “I’m going to take a short break, okay?”

“Whatever,” Ken replied, not taking his eyes off the screen.

Byers hesitated for just a moment before he ducked out behind the curtain of the FCC booth and began to follow the woman. His heart pounded as he did so. He was walking through a crowded public place...in a dress. The past couple years had been very strange for Byers. When Carol left, he’d tried his best to bury whatever strange feelings of hatred he had for his clothes and his hair and his name that he had felt when she’d been there. He’d been able to do it the first time, for his father, so why not now? Unfortunately, it wasn’t really working.

The years since college had seemed to pass in an instant. One second Byers was graduating near the top of his class, the next he was starting his job with the government. It was what he’d always wanted, what he had been sure would make him feel like a whole person. With each passing day, Byers realized more and more that it wouldn’t.

He was used to being hit on by guys he had no interest in. Many men at work, in public, and even when he was heading home would ask him out. Byers never failed to politely decline; not his team.

What really rattled him, though, was this past Christmas at home, his first since starting at the FCC. He’d brought home his new credentials, much to the joy of his mother and the gruff approval of his father. Byers had had to wear a dress for  _ that  _ occasion, too, partially just to make his mother happy.

“Oh,” she’d said his name, “you look so pretty!”

It had made the unmistakable feeling of dread fill his gut. Something about his name, and that word...he didn’t want to think about it. He had smiled warmly, thanking her, all the while feeling a bit ill. Byers had spent the rest of that day—and most of the next couple of months—in a daze. Every day, he tried to ignore the nagging little feeling that something was off with him. He swatted it away but could never quite extinguish it, like a fruit fly that always seemed to be in the kitchen. Byers wanted nothing more than to be once more ignorant of himself, his presence in the world, and how he was perceived by everyone around him.

It was difficult to accomplish that when goosebumps ran up and down his body as the bottom of his dress swished the cold air around him across his legs. The discomfort reminded Byers of how much he wanted to go home, crawl under a blanket, and fall asleep to an episode of Quantum Leap. But then he saw the woman up ahead of him, and he kept walking.

She turned to see if she was being followed and Byers quickly turned to the nearest booth. He picked up a random box and began to examine it as if he was incredibly interested in...whatever it was he was holding. All the while, Byers watched the woman out of the corner of his eye.

“Hey,” a man said.

Byers looked up to see the man running the booth eyeing him. He noticed the man’s gaze dip towards his chest and felt panic rush through his system.

“What’s a doll like you doing in a place like this?” the man asked, leaning forward a bit.

Byers tried to laugh, setting the box back on the desk and taking a few steps backwards. “Sorry, not interested.”

Byers prayed that the woman hadn’t strayed too far and was relieved to find her in front of two strange looking men. She started to walk away, and Byers pursued her as casually as he could.

As he passed by where she had been standing, one of the two men faked a sneeze.

“Narc!” he coughed while the other one looked around to see who he was talking about.

Byers shot them a tired glare. The one who’d insulted him was younger, tangled blonde hair cascading well past his shoulders. The other was shorter, gray beginning to seep into the hair that was rapidly receding from his forehead. Both were selling god-knew-what and looked like trouble, exactly what Byers was always trying to stay  _ out  _ of. After making a mental note to try to avoid the two men, Byers walked past them and towards the woman again.

He’d just about caught up with her when she swerved around a corner. Byers hesitated before trying to go the same way, and just as he turned, he collided with someone. He realized, in equal parts embarrassment and delight, that it was  _ her. _

“Oh, God,” Byers said as the woman dropped her things to the floor. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” He knelt down to help her pick them up. Gently, he grabbed a gold tube of lipstick and a photo of a little girl with blonde hair to match the woman’s. He held her belongings out for her as she looked at him with semi-disgust. 

_ Say something, quick, before you never see her again! _

“She’s very cute,” Byers said, indicating the photograph.

The woman sighed and gave him a small smile. “Yes, she is. Thank you.” She started to stand up again, and Byers started to watch her leave.

_ Maybe you should let it go,  _ Byers thought to himself, but as he watched the woman walk away, he was reminded of Carol again. In the eight years since she’d left their dorm, he hadn’t called her once. Byers didn’t have to think again before he scrambled to his feet.

“Wait!” he called.

She turned back to him, a confused look on her face.

“Um...uh…” Byers stuttered.  _ Don’t lose her again.  _ “You just look like you could use some help.”

The woman paused for a moment, looking Byers up and down. She didn’t gaze at him in the same way as that man at the booth had, or as his boss did when he thought Byers wasn’t looking. She seemed lost, helpless, like she was trying to determine whether Byers really wanted to help her or if he was just another pretender.

_ I care about you,  _ he wanted to say, but he couldn’t, because what reason would she have to believe him? They’d only exchanged about ten words. Even so, Byers felt his heart beginning to pull him in a direction his head warned him against going. He didn’t care.

“Let’s sit down,” the woman said softly.

Together, they found their way to the lunch area. They sat across from each other, and the woman set the photo down on the table.

“My daughter turned three years old last week,” she said, not meeting Byers’s eyes. “Last Tuesday was her birthday.” Tears began to form in her eyes, and Byers wanted nothing more than to wrap her in a hug. “I hope he remembered that.”

“Her...father took her from you?” Byers asked.

“My former boyfriend.” Byers tried to ignore the pang of disappointment that rang through his chest.  _ Boyfriend.  _ He didn’t even have a chance. “He kidnapped her. It’s a long story. Basically, I got involved with a man who turned out to be a complete psychotic.”

“Yeah?” Byers said, trying to ignore his urge to reach out and grab her hand.

“We were only together a few months. I was attracted to him because he was dark and mysterious, and then he just kept getting darker and more mysterious. I got pregnant, and he left.”

_ She’s done with dark and mysterious guys?  _ Byers thought, thinking about himself.  _ Maybe I  _ am  _ more her speed. _

The woman was crying again, and Byers shook himself back to reality. “But then, he suddenly came back and took her about six months ago,” she said, sniffling.

“That’s terrible,” Byers replied. “Did you call the police?”

“Of course. The police and then private investigators. They were surprisingly unhelpful.” She gave him a wry smile and looked down.

“That’s unbelievable.” And it was. Byers didn’t understand how the government,  _ his  _ government, could’ve failed a woman like this. All she wanted was to see her daughter again, and people like him had failed her.  _ I won’t. _

“Yeah, well…” the woman trailed off, noticing the protectiveness in Byers’s eyes. She smiled again. “At least I managed to get a couple of leads. I was told he’s in the Baltimore area. So here I am.”

“That’s a start.”

“Yeah, but now he knows that I’m looking for him, and the closer I get, the more dangerous he becomes.”

“Are you worried that he might harm your daughter?”

“Let’s just say I want to find her and not him.” The woman pulled a piece of paper out of her purse and handed it to Byers. “This is the only other lead I’ve got. That’s why I’m here today.”

Byers read the paper: Arpanet/Whitcorps.

“This has something to do with computers, doesn’t it? The Internet?”

“Actually, the Arpanet,” Byers corrected. “It’s a government network created by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. You can access it through the Internet, though.”

“Somehow, this means something to my ex-boyfriend,” the woman said. “I was hoping it might be a means of finding my daughter.”

Byers watched her, the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, stare down at the photograph of her daughter. His head was telling him to drop it and wish her good luck, but then again, Byers sometimes wasn’t the best at listening to his head.

“If you want…” Byers started, “I can go online and try to find out for you.”

The woman’s head jerked up, hope cascading across her features. “Would you? That…” she smiled, blushing the tiniest bit. “I would really, really appreciate that.”

Byers found himself grinning and twisted a little bit in his seat. It was only then that he realized he didn’t even know her name. Subconsciously, he realized that he didn’t want to tell her his own. It was a small price to pay, Byers figured, to know a bit more about this mystery woman.

“Uh, by the way, my name,” Byers said, following it up with what everyone called him. He held out his hand for her to shake.

“Holly,” the woman replied, taking it. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“Holly,” Byers repeated, a smile creeping across his face. “Just like the sugar!” He picked up a packet that was lying on the table and showed it to Holly.

“Yeah,” Holly said, “just like the sugar.” Byers was so wrapped up in the joy of knowing her name that he didn’t even notice the tinge of regret in her voice as she said it.

Byers led Holly back over to his booth and, after asking Ken to take a break, got to work on accessing the site. “So your ex-boyfriend is into computers?”

“I don’t really know,” Holly replied, watching over Byers’s shoulder. “I knew very little about him, except that he’s psychotic.”

Byers nodded his sympathies as he continued to type. Just then, the screen changed from his regular search page to something titled Project Whitecorps. When he realized what he was looking at, he gasped.

“Somehow, this kicked us into the Defense Data Network!” Byers said with alarm. “I’m sorry. I think this is the end of the line.”

Holly scoffed a little, smiling at him. “Isn’t this something you could, uh...I mean, how do you say it? Hack into?”

Byers raised his eyebrows. “Hack into?! No!” He sighed, shaking his head as it began to ache from the stress weighing on his body. “I mean, technically, yes, I probably could, but this belongs to the Department of Defense. This is a secured site! I mean, I work for the FCC, this is the kind of thing we’re trying to  _ stop. _ ”

Holly looked at him with a frown but nodded. “Thank you,” she said along with his name. “I appreciate your time.”

Hearing that name fall from her lips made his heart ache.  _ Don’t call me that,  _ Byers thought angrily.  _ But what do I want you to call me? _

“Wait,” Byers said for the second time that day. His heart was hammering in his chest as she turned to stare at him. Something about Holly turned him into a new man, one willing to take crazy risks and set loose new sides of himself. No one had made him feel like this since Carol. A smirk made its way onto his lips and he locked eyes with Holly. “You didn’t see this.”

Anxiety and excitement raced through Byers as he started to type and the screen changed again.

“What did you do?” Holly whispered.

“Oh, it’s a government system. I know a couple of loginout tricks with the VMS version five…”  _ Don’t nerd out, you moron!  _ “Never mind.”

Holly sat down in a chair next to Byers, throwing her arm around his back to scoot closer. His heart beat a little faster.

“Can you look up Susanne Modeski?” Holly asked. “That’s my daughter.”

“I’ll try,” Byers replied. “There's just no way of telling…” He felt his draw drop as hundreds of tiny symbols popped up on the screen.

“What is it?”

“It’s an encrypted file! Why would your three-year-old have an encrypted file in a secret Defense Department database?!” Byers was rapidly losing his cool. His initial attempt to help a woman in need was spiraling out of control into something illegal, and worst of all, it was sort of  _ fun  _ to break the law.

“Can you decode it?” Holly inquired, seemingly unphased by the whole of this.

“I’d need some help.”

“Can you print it out for me?”

Byers agreed, but something felt wrong.  _ What is a woman like Holly going to do with an encrypted file about a toddler? _

Holly stood and grabbed the printout. Byers was just shutting down the computer when she roughly grabbed his arm. “My god,  _ hide! _ ” she exclaimed.

“What—” Byers started, but she was already pulling him behind a curtain. He gaped at her as she peaked through the crack in the fabric.

“My ex-boyfriend is out there,” Holly whispered.

“The psychotic?!” Byers was starting to feel dizzy.

“He must’ve tracked me here. He’s looking for me.” Holly put her head in her hands. “Damnit!” She took a deep breath before motioning for Byers to look out as well. “There he is.”

There, in the midst of the convention, stood a tall man who couldn’t have been much older than Byers. He was wearing a trench coat over a finely pressed suit, his hair swooped stylishly to the side. Byers almost wished he could look like him before he remembered who that man was.

“What do we do?” Byers asked, trying and failing not to panic in front of Holly.

“I think I have an idea.”

From behind the curtains, Holly led Byers down a pathway and finally stepped through. He followed her and stepped into a booth, watching as she closed the curtains at the front of it.

“What’s with the narc?”

Byers groaned. Standing in front of him was the man from earlier, the one who had been friends with the blonde hippie-looking guy.  _ Great. _

“She’s helping me with something,” Holly said.

She then proceeded to tell the man—whose name was Melvin Frohike—all about her daughter, her ex-boyfriend, everything she and Byers had gotten up to in the past hour. Frohike examined the file, looking from Holly to Byers and back again.

“I don’t understand,” Frohike said, setting the file down. “Why don’t you just kick this guy’s ass?”

“What?” Byers asked. Before he even had time to consider the proposition, Holly was already talking again.

“No. I just want these pages decoded. Can you do that?”

“Sure, baby,” Frohike replied, grinning. “My kung fu’s the best, but it could take hours! I say, cut to the chase. If pretty boy out there can tell us where your daughter is, we just need to go beat it out of him.”

“Bad idea,” Holly replied, smirking a little at the idea of Frohike trying to beat up  _ anybody.  _ “He’s very dangerous.”

“Lady,  _ I’m  _ dangerous.”

Byers opened his mouth to say something, but Frohike held up a hand. He shut his mouth again, perturbed.

“Alright, so we’ll just follow him,” Frohike conceded. “But for all we know, he’s got the girl here somewhere.”

Gears were spinning faster in Byers’s head than he could even process them. Why didn’t Holly want to go save her daughter? He was sure that if it was his child, he would risk anything to try to get her back. What was going on?

“Holly, it makes sense,” Byers tried, taking a step towards her.

“No! Just stay away from him, please!”

“We’ll stay back a ways,” Frohike assured her. “Just wait for us here. Come on, FCC.”

“But—” Holly started, but Frohike was already dragging Byers away.

Byers and Frohike started to walk through the convention in silence. Byers was on high alert, scanning in every direction to look for Holly’s ex, but Frohike was acting like this was nothing more than a typical Saturday afternoon.

“So what’s your story, narc?” Frohike asked conversationally. “You know Holly from a book club or something?”

“No, no,” Byers replied. “We just met today.”

“I see.” Frohike kept walking, then grinned at Byers. “You think she’s hot?”

“ _ What? _ ” Byers said, stopping in his tracks.

Frohike looked confused. “What?”

“I…” Byers felt himself blush and tried to will it away. “I mean, in a purely objective sense, yes, Holly is very pretty. So if that’s what you’re asking, then yes, but if you’re implying something more…”

Frohike rolled his eyes. “You government bozos are weird as hell. It’s just a question, FCC! Come on.” He scoffed, muttering under his breath, “You try to be nice to a narc…”

Byers exhaled in relief. So he  _ didn’t  _ just out himself. He’d been trying very hard not to reveal his prospective love life to the clearly-heterosexual men that surrounded him each and every day, and he was sure he’d just come within an inch of doing it now. Just as he started to follow Frohike again, he froze. “I see him!”

Byers and Frohike jumped behind a stack of VCRs and Frohike picked up the nearest set of magnifying goggles.

“What’s he doing?” Frohike asked.

“Talking to somebody,” Byers whispered back.

“This dude doesn’t look so tough.” The dude in question turned their way and Frohike ducked behind the VCRs again. “Act casual.”

Byers watched curiously as Holly’s ex-boyfriend wandered over to an exhibit advertising “Alien Invaders!” The man picked up a small radio and jumped as it started to beep rapidly. As much as Byers hated to admit it to himself, Frohike was right: this man didn’t look like much of a threat at all.

After putting the radio back on the table of the exhibit, Holly’s ex-boyfriend turned down a hallway. Byers was after him in a second, Frohike right behind him. They stalked down the abandoned hallway, looking for any sign of the man and finding nothing, when—

“What’s up?”

Frohike stiffened, and Byers whirled around to see who was there. Sure enough, it was Holly's ex.

“You looking for somebody?” the man asked, stepping out of a shadow next to the wall.

_ That’s rather melodramatic,  _ Byers thought irritatedly. Still, they weren’t supposed to get caught. Blood was rushing in his ears. “Just, um...the bathroom.”

“I don’t think it’s down here. Hey, you with the FCC?” The man gently tapped the button on Byers’s dress.

“What's it to you?” Frohike cut in, trying to sound tough.

“I think we share the same credit union.” The man reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a badge, flashing it at the men in front of him. “Special Agent Fox Mulder, I’m with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. I was hoping maybe you could help me. I’m looking for a girl. I was wondering if you’d seen her.” Agent Mulder pulled out a photo and held it up. “This is her, have you seen her?”

Byers looked at the photo and Holly Modeski stared back at him. He was too shocked to speak.

“Sorry,” Frohike replied, giving a shrug.

“What did she do?” Byers forced out.

“What's it to you?” Agent Mulder shot back, giving him and Frohike a sly grin. “Thank you ma’am, sir.” Mulder’s phone began to ring, and Frohike took that as a sign to leave. He grabbed Byers’s arm and started to drag him back to the convention.

Once they were safely away from the FBI agent, Frohike let go.

“What the hell was that all about?” he asked.

“Her ex-boyfriend is with the FBI?” Byers said. None of this was adding up.

Byers’s feelings of dread only increased when they returned to Frohike’s station.

“Where’d she go?” Frohike asked.

Holly, who was supposed to wait for them, was nowhere to be seen. Just as Byers was going to announce his plan, he heard a commotion behind him. With horror, he turned to see men in military uniforms dragging Ken away.

“All I did was play Dig Dug!” Ken was trying to explain. “I didn’t hack into anyone’s computer!” The military didn’t seem to care at all.

Byers felt as if the whole world had just crashed down around him. The woman he was falling for might not be who she said she was, a man he knew was being taken by the Army for a crime Byers himself had committed, and the creepy-crawly feeling Byers had sometimes hadn’t left since Agent Mulder had called him “ma’am”.

Robotically, Byers felt himself take a step towards the military men. “Wait, it was me!”

A rough hand descended on his shoulder and pulled him backwards. Frohike. “What are you doing?”

“ _ I  _ hacked into the computer!” Byers admitted.

Frohike groaned and threw Byers back behind the curtains and into the booth. He shut them again quickly. “So you wanna turn yourself in? Are you crazy? A hacker  _ never  _ turns themselves in.”

“I am not a  _ hacker, _ ” Byers said with disgust.

“Listen,” Frohike tried again, “we got FBI agents running around, military police—whatever the hell is going on around here, it’s big, and your fellow lady friend is somehow at the center of it all.”

“She needs my help,” Byers said weakly, unable to meet Frohike’s eyes. “How can we learn what’s going on?”

“The FBI are looking for her. Hack into the FBI mainframe.” Frohike paused for a moment, then sighed. “I know just the guy who can do it.”

“You’re talking about a premeditated crime against the United States Government.”

“Hey, your second one today!” Frohike pulled the FCC pin from Byers’s shirt and gave him a shiteating grin. “Welcome to the dark side.”

Frohike led Byers out of the convention center to a more private area of the hotel. They traveled in silence, Byers still too shocked at both Holly and himself to say anything. Frohike stopped them in front of some kind of rec room and watched as Frohike opened the door. Inside, five or so men sat around a table playing some kind of board game. The telltale smell of marijuana drifted through the air, only adding to Byers’s anxiety. One of then men inside the room stood, outraged, and marched to the door.

“What’s the big idea bringing the narc in here?” Sure enough, it was the same blonde man as earlier.

“Me and the narc have a proposition for you,” Frohike said.

The blonde looked from Frohike to Byers. Byers shrunk back a bit. He wasn’t sure he liked the way this guy was looking at him, the loathing in his gaze. In fact, Byers felt somewhat uncomfortable being around this many guys. It wasn’t that he felt threatened, but more like he felt inadequate. Despite the fact that the guys in here were clearly nothing more than computer nerds, some unwelcome feeling that he would never measure up to them was creeping into Byers’s heart.

The blonde’s movement out the door startled him from his thoughts. “What proposition?”

“The coolest hack in the world,” Frohike promised.

Byers watched with confusion as the two exchanged some kind of computer nerd lingo before the blonde agreed to Frohike’s deal and left whatever game he’d been playing behind. The three of them left hopped into an elevator together and Byers listened to them talk as they went. The blonde man’s name was Langly, and he knew Frohike from a year-long rivalry against each other’s cable companies.  _ Illegal  _ cable companies, Byers might add.

“How’d you get involved?” Langly asked Byers as he unlocked the door to his hotel room.

“I just wanted to help Holly,” Byers replied, trying to sound confident.

Langly nodded. “Didn’t know a narc could have morals.”

“Not so sure she’s a narc anymore,” Frohike said, giving Byers an encouraging smile.

Once inside, Langly told Byers how to help him set up the computer. He explained some of his tech as he worked, gloating to Frohike as he did it.

As Byers watched Langly start to type, he stood, going to the window. Frohike’s words wouldn't get out of his head.

“Oh, God,” Byers moaned. “I’m going to get fired. I’m going to go to jail. I  _ deserve  _ to go to jail!”

“Shut up already,” Frohike called.

Byers turned to look at him and then turned away again. The two kept muttering to each other, only adding to his already mounting anxiety. He was throwing away what he’d worked towards his whole life, maybe the last thing connecting himself and his father, and for what? For some woman he’d only just met a few hours ago?

_ Why are you destroying your happiness?  _ Byers asked himself. Another voice in the back of his head whispered,  _ Are you really happy? _

“Bingo!” Langly cried, jerking Byers out of his thoughts. “Government hack is a snap. Last week I hacked into the Maryland DMV. Changed the gender marker on my ID card to an X.”

Byers whipped his head around at Langly. The blonde simply stared at him. Byers looked to Frohike next, trying to judge if the man was serious. Frohike looked exasperated, and the spark that had briefly burned in Byers’s heart at the thought of another person dealing with  _ gender  _ died again.  _ It was a joke, I’m sure. _ “What now?”

“Look up the FBI agent,” Frohike offered. “What’d he say his name was?”

“Mulder,” Byers said.

Langly typed in the name and hit enter. Frohike read off a list of increasingly impressive statistics, and Byers began to feel that jealousy swimming in his stomach again. Mulder was an FBI agent (Byers’s father’s dream job for him), a graduate from Oxford at the top of his class and already moving his way up the ranks of the government. He was handsome, too, tall with a jawline that looked sharp enough to cut. Byers subconsciously rubbed his own jawline, soft and unimpressive.

_ If only I could look like Fox Mulder,  _ he found himself thinking.

“He’s single!” Frohike announced excitedly. Langly smacked him on the shoulder and Frohike laughed.

_ Homophobic, too?  _ Byers thought with worry.

“Anyway,” Frohike said, clearing his throat, “there’s nothing in here about him being a psycho  _ or  _ having a daughter.”

Byers narrowed his eyes. There had to be some explanation for this. “Try, under active cases, ‘Holly Modeski.’”

Langly typed it up and shook his head. “ _ Nada.  _ No case file.”

“Try the daughter, ‘Susanne Modeski.’”

Another quick search, and there it was. In shock, Byers leaned towards the screen. A photo of Holly—or rather,  _ not  _ Holly—was before his eyes. “ _ She’s  _ Susanne Modeski?”

“‘Employee at the Army Advanced Weapons Facility at White Stone, New Mexico,’” Frohike read.

“Whitecorps,” Byers said, thinking back to the paper she’d handed him.

“Oh, man, look at this!” Langly exclaimed. “Says here she blew up one of their labs and killed four people, including the MP who tried to stop her at the gate.”

“‘Subject Modeski is considered unstable and delusional,’” Frohike said, giving Byers a nervous look. “‘Intellectually brilliant, yet prone to confabulation and fits of violent behavior.’”

“‘Psychotic and profoundly paranoid,’” Langly added.

“‘Armed and extremely dangerous. Do not approach. Call immediately for backup.’”

Frohike and Langly both stared at Byers, searching for help, answers, anything. All Byers could do was stare back, his stomach dropping. What the hell had he gotten them into?

Just then, the door to the hotel room began to unlock. Byers could hardly catch his breath, frozen in place. Frohike grabbed Byers and Langly and pulled them up, as far away from the door as they could possibly get. The door opened, and Susanne stepped inside.

Just seeing her was enough to break Byers’s heart.

Slowly, Susanne stalked over to the computer. “You’ve been reading about me,” she said softly, almost sounding disappointed. Quietly, she shut the laptop. The second she made eye contact with Byers, she sighed. “My name is Susanne Modeski, not Holly. I’m...I was an organic chemist for the Advanced Weapons Facility. But I never blew up any lab, and I certainly never killed anybody. All I did was try to quit. I don’t have a job you just quit.”

“What about your daughter?” Byers asked, taking a step forward. If he’d been played, he deserved answers.

Susanne paused, not meeting his eyes. “I don’t have one.”

Byers felt his heart shatter into pieces. This woman wasn’t Carol at all. She wasn’t confident, or genuine, or any of the things his friend had been. He had reached out to help her, given a piece of his soul to her, and she had crushed it. Some part of him knew that it wasn’t her fault that he had fallen so hard. He barely even knew her, for Christ’s sake. But something about Susanne had made Byers feel safer than he had in years, and the fact that it had all been a lie was destroying him.

“I’m sorry,” Susanne whispered. 

“The photo?” he choked out.

“It came with the wallet. You wouldn’t have believed the truth, obviously, and I desperately needed your help.”

Susanne was crying again, he realized. The genuine hurt in his voice seemed to have affected her. The cold side of Byers told him that this was just another lie, a facade meant to draw him in and get even more sympathy than she already had. But Byers’s gut was telling him that these tears were for real. Gradually, a weight was lifted off of his shoulders.

“For what, exactly?” Byers asked tentatively.

Susanne wiped her eyes and turned away, giving him a brief second to wipe his own. When she turned back, she was holding the encrypted paper he’d printed for her earlier. “To get this. I still need it deciphered. This has in it everything I need to expose the United States Government’s plot against its own people, one I unwittingly helped to forward by developing the ergotamine-histamine gas.”

“Ergotamine-histamine?” Langly repeated, unsure.

“E.H. for short. It’s an aerosolized gas which, in small doses, causes anxiety and paranoia in its subject.”

“Paranoia?” Frohike cut in, sardonic. “Gotcha.”

Byers shot him a look, to which Frohike raised an eyebrow.  _ You’re protecting her again,  _ it seemed to say, and Byers squirmed a bit and turned back to Susanne.

“Secret forces within the government plan to test this gas on the American people right here in Baltimore!” Susanne went on, stepping towards them.

The three men looked at each other. Langly, usually the first to make a quip against the government, rubbed the back of his neck. Even Frohike stayed silent. Byers could feel two distinct parts of himself slowly ripping apart, and he couldn’t decide whether or not he even wanted to put them back together.

“I am not making this up!” Susanne shouted at them. “Don’t you get it?  _ Nobody  _ is safe! Look what they did to JFK!”

Byers’s ears perked up. “What did they do to JFK?”

“Dallas? 1963? Hello?” Susanne was looking at him as if he hadn’t studied JFK his entire childhood, the man who had died the day he was born. He had always wanted to be exactly like him. Every Halloween (until his father had deemed it unacceptable), Byers had dressed up as President John F. Kennedy. Byers would’ve laughed at Susanne if he hadn’t been so shocked. The insinuation that his government had assassinated his hero was just too much.

“They want to control every aspect of our lives, from the cradle to the grave. They practically do already.” Susanne rushed over to the nightstand next to the hotel bed, doing a quick search before grabbing a book and holding it up for the men to see. “Hotel Bible. Who do you think put this here?”

“The...government?” Langly answered, unsure.

“One in every hotel room in America,” Susanne explained, walking over to them. “It’s the perfect vessel for electronic surveillance. No one ever questions its presence.”

“Now I’m sorry,” Frohike said, finally moving from his spot by the window with Langly right on his heels. “You’re telling me that the U.S. Government, the same government that gave us Amtrak—”

“Not to mention the Susan B. Anthony dollar!” Langly cut in.

“—is behind some of the darkest, most far-reaching conspiracies on the planet?” Frohike finished. “That’s just  _ crazy! _ ”

“I mean, like,  _ this  _ chick works for the government,” Langly pointed out, shoving a thumb in the direction of Byers.

Byers winced. The more they yelled at each other, the more his discomfort about his body rose. It was strange, how two things so unconnected could loop together and exacerbate each other to the point of nausea. He tried to ignore it.

“I’ll prove it to you,” Susanne said. At least no one else in the room seemed to be aware of how Byers out of place was feeling. “Just help me decipher this!” As Susanne pulled the encrypted paper out of her purse once more, a gun clattered to the ground. Langly gulped loudly. Susanne looked directly at Byers. “What do you say, guys?”

Byers realized with a start that Frohike and Langly were looking at him too. Since when did he make the big decisions? Byers looked again at Susanne, at the hope shining in her eyes. It looked exactly the same as it had that morning, and Byers suddenly realized that none of Susanne’s feelings had been a lie at all. Her story was false, but her heart was true. Somewhere deep in Byers’s heart, he knew that his own life was the same way.

“We’ll help you,” Byers announced.

“We will?” Langly asked, shooting him a look.

Byers nodded. “We will.”

Susanne smiled at him and he felt his heart begin to come together all over again.

A while later, they’d found their way to the basement of the hotel and had set up shop. Langly had brought down his computer and all of its complicated wires. Byers and Susanne watched in silence as Frohike and Langly set it up. As the two men began to bicker, Byers felt Susanne’s hand brush his. It was just a moment, but he turned to look at her. Was she...blushing?

_ Is she into me?!  _ Byers thought. He was just about to reach for her hand back when Frohike clapped and wooted.

“Oh yeah!” Frohike exclaimed. “Here we go.”

Susanne shot Byers a regretful look and stepped over to the computer. Byers, still blushing, followed her. He watched as the computer deciphered the file and began to read. “‘The surprise defection of Dr. Susanne Modeski is a blow to the program, though not a fatal one. The timetable remains unchanged. The first E.B.O. will occur in the Baltimore-Washington corridor within one week’s time.’”

“What’s an E.B.O.?” Langly asked, worry seeping into his tone.

“Engineered Biological Operation,” Susanne said, “toxic organic agents used on humans.”

Langly and Frohike exchanged a glance.

“‘Security risks are being attenuated,’” Byers read on. “‘Dr. Modeski’s team has been processed, and plausible denial constructed.’”

“Which is another way of saying that they’ve murdered my research associates and placed the blame on me.”

Byers still couldn’t believe that he was really here, that he’d walked out on his booth at the FCC to help a strange woman and was now in the basement of the same hotel with two hackers and a wanted criminal. When Byers had dreamed of working for the government, this hadn’t exactly been what he’d had in mind.

“Now do you understand?” Susanne said sadly. She pointed at the screen. “Wait. Here it is. ‘E.H. product is presently warehoused at 204 Fells Point Road, lot number A-9000, awaiting E.B.O..’ This is it.”

“‘Subject Modeski currently monitored around the clock,’” Byers said. “‘Covert electronics installed per Dr. Michael Kilbourne, 11-6-88.’ Who’s Dr. Michael Kilbourne?”

“My dentist,” Susanne answered. She’d gone pale. “Excuse me.” Susanne walked over and grabbed something off a table, then entered the bathroom and closed the door.

_ What was that about?  _ “What do you think?” Byers asked the other men.

“That thing about her dentist…” Langly started. He swallowed.

“One of us should check on her,” Frohike said. Langly nodded, and they both looked at Byers. “And by one of us, I mean you.”

“Me?” Byers said. “Why me?”

“You’re the only other chick here,” Frohike said matter-of-factly.

Byers was suddenly very aware that he was still wearing a dress. His skin began to itch all over again, and he needed to move. He used that desire to move to walk towards the bathroom, knocking gently on the door. “Dr. Modeski?” He opened the door and gasped when he saw her. “Get in here!”

Susanne had pulled one of her teeth from her mouth, and blood was everywhere. The other two men sprinted over as Byers ran to Susanne, gripping her shoulder gently.

“My God, what did you do?” Byers exclaimed.

Susanne held up the tooth for the men to see. “Look at it.”

“We’ll look at it in a bit,” Byers promised, throwing his arm around her shoulder. “Right now, though, let’s get you some ice.” Slowly, Byers led Susanne out of the basement and back up to Langly’s hotel room, tooth in tow. After getting her a much needed ice pack, the three men examined the tooth in Langly’s microscope, finding some kind of electronic surveillance bug inside.

Any doubt in Byers’s mind was gone. “What’s the address of that warehouse?”

Through her pain, Susanne smiled at him. It was the best feeling he’d felt in ages.

After flushing the tooth and making sure that Susanne was feeling better, they prepared to break into the warehouse. They didn’t have much in the way of weapons, or a plan, so it was mostly just them trying to psych themselves up. Langly seemed to be reading some kind of Dungeons and Dragons guidebook, whereas Frohike was just muttering to himself. Susanne was resting on the bed, ice pack still in hand. Byers sat down in a chair next to her.

“You know,” Susanne said his name, “you’re very brave for doing this.”

Byers blushed. “It’s the American thing to do, right? Or, rather, the right thing to do.”

Susanne smiled at him again and reached for his hand. “Maybe I should go alone.”

“Susanne, be serious!” Byers said. “You’re injured, you’re wanted, they’ll kill you the second they lay eyes on you. At least, they will if we’re not there to cause a distraction.”

“I know, but…” Susanne sighed, not meeting his eyes. “I just…I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

Byers felt his heart swell. Before he could speak, he was interrupted for what felt like the millionth time that day.

“Ready to go, narc?” Frohike called, hand on the doorknob.

Byers sighed and let go of Susanne’s hand. She gave him a weak smile. “Ready.”

Langly slammed his book down on the table. “Then let’s kick some government ass!”

The break-in turned out to be the easy part. Langly was tall enough to help Frohike get up the fence, and Byers was both tall and skinny enough to manage it himself. Susanne got over with a practiced ease that Byers was ashamed to say turned him on a little. They didn’t have to look around inside long before they found what they were looking for.

“Here it is!” Langly called. “A-9000, right?”

They all followed his voice to a stack of boxes. The one in question was huge and heavy-looking, reading A-9000, just like Langly had said. Susanne pulled out a knife and began to cut the box open, revealing dozens of tiny packages.

Byers pulled one out and examined it, confused. “Asthma medicine?”

“This is how they plan on distributing the gas—in asthma inhalers,” Susanne said. “This is their random test.” She looked around at the men behind her and smiled. “But now we’ve got proof.”

“STAY WHERE YOU ARE! I’M A FEDERAL AGENT!”

All of them turned in horror to see Special Agent Fox Mulder headed their way. Byers’s heart began to pound; he was  _ definitely  _ going to jail.

“Susanne Modeski, you’re under arrest for the murders of four people at Whitestone Army Base,” Agent Mulder said, striding towards them.

Against his better judgment, Byers found himself taking a step forward. “She didn’t do it!” he cried.

It was only a moment before the other two were backing him up.

“She’s innocent!” Frohike agreed.

“Yeah!” Langly said, earning a tired look from Frohike.

“You three are under arrest also,” Agent Mulder announced, unphased. “Miss Modeski, stay where you are.”

Byers turned to look at Susanne. She looked like a deer in the headlights. Her last chance of saving humanity from the evil she’d helped unleash was rapidly slipping away. Her eyes looked ever so much like Carol’s, and Byers felt a feeling almost foreign to him swell into his chest: courage.

“Just listen!” Byers shouted to Mulder. “There’s more going on here than meets the eye!”

“You three get on the ground  _ now! _ ” Mulder shouted back.

Byers stood his ground, but was quickly yanked down by Frohike. Langly didn’t need to be asked twice. Byers’s heart began to pound as he laid face down, the cold concrete chilling his bare skin to the bone. He couldn’t see Susanne from this position and was powerless to help her.

“Miss Modeski, stop moving, I’m not gonna ask you again.”

Neither Susanne nor Agent Mulder said another word. Then, Byers heard footsteps approaching.  _ Did Agent Mulder call for backup?  _ Byers turned to see two men dressed all in black emerging from some previously unseen part of the warehouse.

“Dr. Modeski, please come with us,” one said.

Agent Mulder pulled out his badge and held it up for the men to see. “Federal agent. Identify yourself.”

“Ma’am, come with us,” the mysterious man said, ignoring Agent Mulder entirely.

Mulder didn’t seem to like that.

“Step forward and identify yourselves now!” the agent shouted, reaching for his gun.

Suddenly, the two men behind Byers began firing. Agent Mulder flung himself behind a stack of boxes and Byers placed his hands over his ears.  _ Fuck, fuck, FUCK! _

Langly rolled out of the way of the fire, Byers and Frohike doing the same. The men didn’t seem to plan on ceasing their gunfire until Agent Mulder was dead. As Byers sat in shock, hands over his ears, he heard Agent Mulder begin to moan. Hesitantly, Byers stuck his head out from behind his cover and looked. A faint white powder was drifting through the air. If his ears hadn’t been ringing, he would have heard the hissing of gas, too.

Byers sat in fear, waiting for it to be over, when two more gunshots rang through the air. He heard bodies hit the ground and winced. The two men must have been dead. After a few moments of silence, Langly gripped his wrist.

“Do you think it’s safe to come out now?” the blonde whispered.

Byers nodded. Together, the three of them came out from behind the boxes and looked around. Sure enough, the two men were dead. Byers led the way over to Agent Mulder and looked down at him. He was shaking all over, his jacket, shirt, and tie abandoned on the floor. Covering his chest was a tight piece of fabric, and beneath it, a not quite hidden bump.

_ Oh my God,  _ Byers thought.  _ Agent Mulder is just like Carol!  _ Before he could make his brain stop, it whispered,  _ And just like you.  _

Byers turned to see if Langly and Frohike had noticed the same thing, but they seemed more concerned with another fact: Susanne was nowhere to be seen.

_ I’ve lost her.  _ “Susanne?!” Byers called, turning in every direction to try to find her. But then a door behind them opened, and he had no more time to think about it. A crew of men in gas masks had entered the warehouse. After checking to make sure that the air was clear, they removed them, and a man moved from their ranks to the front of the pack. He was their leader, Byers assumed, smartly dressed with a glare to scare off even the bravest souls. He passed right by the three of them, his cold, steely eyes gazing directly into Byers’s own.

Byers, Langly, and Frohike couldn’t look away as they walked over to Agent Mulder. The leader stared at him for a moment before muttering something, and then his subordinates got to work. There were trucks, body bags, sanitization supplies, and other tools Byers couldn’t—or didn’t want to—recognize. The leader didn’t seem too concerned about Mulder, who was now tearing his pants off and crawling into some far corner of the warehouse. Byers’s heart pounded again at the idea of Agent Mulder making his once-female body into something new, and what that could mean for him.

“I’m alive!” someone choked out.

Byers was jerked back to reality by the voice, by the men zipping up that very much still-breathing man into a body bag. Langly gagged. Frohike couldn’t seem to get a handle on the fact that all this was really happening. Byers, however, was all too aware. Everything Susanne had told them was true. His government, the one he had trusted before he even fully understood what it was, was more dark and sinister than anything he’d ever seen in the movies.

Everything was wrong. Susanne was gone, he was wearing a dress, and his lifelong dream was a complete waste of time. As he stood there, freezing in the stupid dress his government boss had made him wear, Byers made a choice: he was done hiding amongst lies. He was going to discover the truth about  _ everything. _

“Who are you people?!” Byers shouted. But no one would listen. The men were still working, picking up all evidence that anything had ever existed in this warehouse. Boxes were being dragged off, “asthma medicine” picked up and disposed of. Byers stormed over to the leader as he knelt on the ground, examining a familiar pistol. “What authority do you have to do this?!”

“Shut up,” Langly whispered his name.

The leader turned around to glance at Byers, contempt etched into his features. He stood and walked straight past them again, but this time, Byers followed. The leader stood before Agent Mulder, still writhing and whispering something.

“No one touches this man,” the leader said.

Who gave him the right to decide who got to make it out alive. “Excuse me,” Byers said.

Frohike gripped his arm and said his name again. Byers shook him off.

“Sir!”

The leader walked back over to Byers, finally staying out before him. Langly and Frohike were trying to look tough, but Byers didn’t have to pretend anymore. His anger was enough to keep him going.

“Why are you doing this?” Byers asked, staring the leader down. “You people framed Susanne Modeski. You plan to test that chemical on an unwitting public.  _ Why? _ For what  _ possible  _ reason?”

Frohike said his name once more, softly. Byers was sure he hated it more by the minute. “Shut up,” Frohike whispered.

“Who gives you the authority?” Byers went on. He didn’t care anymore; he had nothing to lose.

The leader stared into his eyes, expressionless. Then, two words: “No bags.”

A man next to the leader pushed Byers down to his knees, then Langly, and finally Frohike. The unmistakable sound of a gun cocking. Langly moaned.

“Whoa, guys!” Frohike exclaimed.

The leader wasn’t having it. He held out the pistol in his hand without hesitation and stepped behind Byers.

_ This is it,  _ Byers thought. The past 28 years of his life had been a total waste. He realized just how long he’d been pretending, just how much he didn’t want to admit to himself for one reason or another. He thought of the suit he’d wanted to wear for prom and his father slapping him. Carol’s crying face came into view, then morphed into Susanne’s. How different would his life had been if he had met her ten years earlier? How many hours, days, unfathomable amounts of precious time would he have used to his advantage? Byers had been running from who he was ever since he could understand it, but with a gun to his head, he finally allowed himself to think the one truth he had never allowed himself to recognize:  _ I am not a woman. _

The gun clicked. Empty. Byers’s heart leapt up into his throat and he felt like he was floating. Adrenaline rushed through his veins, and he could hardly manage a single thought. Only one could fit in his brain.

_ I am not a woman and I am alive. I am not a woman and I am alive. I am not a woman and I am  _ alive.

“Behave yourselves,” the leader said. Byers could hardly process it as the man turned to leave.

_ Leave?  _ Byers jerked around, staring at the man with disgust. “That’s it?! You’re just trying to intimidate us?” Langly and Frohike were looking at him with equal parts respect and terror. He didn’t even care. “To  _ scare  _ us, so we’ll keep quiet?!”

Frohike said his name again. “I swear to god, I’ll shoot you myself.”

Byers stood, outraged still. “It’s all true what Susanne said about you people, isn’t it? About John F. Kennedy, Dallas?”

The leader looked back at him one last time. “I heard it was a lone gunman.” And then he was gone.

Byers, Langly, and Frohike waited in total silence for the police to arrive, spare Agent Mulder’s occasional moans. Each of them was too wrapped up in his own thoughts to notice the other. Byers still couldn’t believe that he’d finally allowed himself to admit that he was different. That  _ everything  _ would be different now. Somehow, Byers knew that this wasn’t like the last time where he could pretend he’d never felt anything and move on. He’d dove too deep this time, and there was no going back.

Before they knew it, they were in a jail cell. Surprisingly, Byers hardly even noticed. Being arrested was the  _ last  _ thing on his mind right now.

“We’re screwed,” Langly said, finally breaking the silence. “Thank you so much for getting me involved in this, Doohickey.”

“ _ ‘Fro _ hike,’ you hippie jerk!” Frohike said.

“Doohickey!” Langly exclaimed.

Byers rolled his eyes.

“You know, with that long blonde hair to match the narc’s pretty looks, you’ll both come way before me in getting traded for cigarettes,” Frohike pointed out. “And I’m gonna be laughing my  _ ass  _ off.”

“Oh, yeah?” Langly said. “You wanna cha-cha? Any time, any place!”

Byers couldn’t take it anymore. “Both of you relax!”

“Shut up, you narc!” Langly said.

“It’s your fault we’re here,” Frohike added. 

“You in the dress!” a cop suddenly shouted. Byers looked over. “You first.”

Byers was then taken to an interrogation room, where a detective asked him a lot of questions and he gave him a lot of answers he didn’t seem to want at all. After that, he was taken back to his cell. Langly went next, then Frohike, and they were at least permitted to sleep.

Byers startled awake this next morning with Langly’s loud groan.

“Oh, man,” he said. “It’s not all a bad dream. I  _ am  _ in hell.”

Slowly, Byers sat up. His body ached all over, partially from the hard table he’d slept on and partially from the strain of the previous day.

“Ugh, women,” Frohike said, adjusting his glasses.

Byers’s heart began to beat a little. Why was Frohike pointing out his gender? Had he worked out that he was… _ not  _ a woman? “What do you mean, ‘women’?” Byers questioned anxiously.

“You know exactly what he means,” Langly said with venom.

Byers took a deep breath, about to go on, when Langly kept going.

“Your molar-pulling friend roped us in and left us swinging in the breeze!”

“Is that what you meant?” Byers asked, looking to Frohike for confirmation.

Frohike seemed a little confused as to why Byers cared so much, but he didn’t push the issue. “Look, she  _ is  _ hot, but you gotta admit, we’re here because of her.”

Byers blushed a bit. There Frohike was again, perhaps insinuated that he felt something for Susanne.  _ No more lies,  _ he remembered, but figured it wouldn’t be best to mention it right now.

“I’m here because I wanted to learn the truth,” Byers clarified, adjusting his dress a bit. “I assumed that was the same for you.”

Langly and Frohike said nothing.

“Susanne opened my eyes to it,” Byers said quietly.  _ In more ways than one.  _ “She doesn’t owe me anything. If there was some way I could help her still, I would do it in a second.”

Then, something unexpected happened. Langly reached out and patted him on the shoulder. Byers looked at him with surprise, but Langly just rolled his eyes.

“You’re not so bad…” the blonde said. “For a narc.”

Frohike nodded and shot him a smile that seemed to say,  _ You’re alright, buddy. _

It was then that Byers realized what they’d all been through together. He trusted these strange men that he’d met just the day before. All of them had  _ seen  _ things, experienced things that not many other people on the face of the earth had. And, Byers realized, Langly and Frohike were the first friends he’d made since Carol.

Just then, a door opened. All three of them stood at once.

“Apparently,” the detective who had interrogated them said, “Agent Mulder came to and verified your warehouse story—at least, what little...he seems to recall of it.” Byers didn’t miss the way the detective had stumbled on the word “he”. His stomach clenched. The detective unlocked their cell door. “Three cheers for the FBI, you guys are free to go.”

Together, Byers, Langly, and Frohike stood and made their way towards the front of the police station. The detective made a mocking comment as they left. As they regained their items, a police officer went over to the detective.

“Detective?” he said, pulling the detective to the side. “We got a stolen car that turned up at the train station. It’s the one that the FBI agent was driving.”

When the detective had left the room, Byers grabbed his new friends and pulled them together.

“Susanne must have taken Mulder’s car last night,” Byers whispered. “She left it at the train station.”

“So?” Langly asked.

“So maybe we can catch up with her.”

“Where?” Frohike inquired. “She took a train.”

“She’s too smart for that,” Byers replied, his heart swelling a little at the thought. “Don’t you see? She just meant to throw them off!”

Langly nodded, understanding. “She said she wanted to go public.”

Frohike grinned. “The Baltimore  _ Guardian  _ is only a couple of blocks down from the train station!”

Just like that, Byers was heading for the exit. Once he was on the street, he searched frantically for a bus. One was there, but it was leaving soon. He started to run.

“Wait up!” Langly called from behind.

Byers didn’t stop until he got to the doors. Langly and Frohike came up behind him, panting and coughing. Langly slapped the back of Byers’s head as he paid the bus driver, rolling his eyes. Byers rubbed at it absently, smiling a bit. It wasn’t like when his father hit him, not at all. This slap was one of exasperation, and a friendship Byers had been craving for years.

“Someone’s excited,” Frohike said, giving Byers a look.

Byers didn’t say anything, he just stared straight ahead. They had to get to Susanne before she was gone forever.

The bus couldn’t travel fast enough, but it finally stopped on the street of the Baltimore  _ Guardian.  _ Byers jumped off without even saying thanks and looked around, searching for any sign of Susanne. And there she was. Today she was wearing a shiny black leather jacket, one that made him go a little weak at the knees. He wasn’t too late. He had found her.

“Susanne!” Byers called, running over to her. He had no idea whether or not Langly and Frohike were following, and he didn’t care.

Susanne turned to look at him, shock splayed across her face. She said his name softly, tenderly, in such a way that he couldn’t even hate it in that moment. Langly and Frohike scrambled up to his side and Susanne smiled at them. Then she turned her warm gaze back to Byers.

“They didn’t believe my story,” Susan said, looking regretfully at the  _ Guardian  _ building, “not a word of it.” Then she started to laugh. “But who in their right mind would?”

Byers had to smile.  _ I would. _

“What are you going to do now?” Frohike asked her.

“Try other newspapers, TV stations. Not give up. Keep trying to find people who will listen…” Susanne reached for Byers’s hand. No one interrupted her this time. “People like you. I appreciate what you did for me.” She glanced at Langly and Frohike, smiling. “All three of you.”

“We still want to help,” Byers told her, squeezing her hand tighter.

Susanne looked into his eyes, surprised and grateful. It seemed to be then that she realized the truth: Byers was for real. Gently, Susanne pulled Byers’s hand towards her and, before he knew it, she was kissing him. At first he was shocked and wanted to pull away. Everyone could see them!  _ Everyone  _ could see them. Byers’s stomach flipped and he grabbed the back of Susanne’s neck, pulling her even closer.

_ I  _ want  _ everyone to see us,  _ he thought. Susanne had made a risk-taker out of him, and he absolutely loved it. After a moment, Susanne pulled away, still gripping his hand.

“You already have,” she said quietly.

Suddenly, a phone started to ring. Byers quickly placed it as...a public telephone?

“Guys…” Langly said, implying the question they were all asking.  _ Who the hell had the number for a public telephone? _

Susanne sighed, looking at the three of them resolutely. “No matter how paranoid you are, you’re not paranoid enough.” She began to back away, letting go of Byers’s hand as hers began to shake. “Tell the truth. Reach as many people as you can with it, that’s your weapon!”

Byers could only look on as Susanne ran off, heels clicking against the pavement. A car skidded around a corner and a man leaned out of it, grabbing Susanne roughly by the arm.

“Susanne?!” Byers screamed as he started to run for the car. Langly and Frohike were with him. “SUSANNE!”

Byers was powerless as he watched Susanne Modeski, the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, the woman he felt may have been the love of his life, be dragged off by the same man who had threatened to kill him the night before. He started to run after it, still shouting her name, when Frohike’s steadying hand grabbed his shoulder once more.

“Hey, hey,” Frohike said softly. “There’s nothing you can do.”

“Get off me!” Byers yelled, ripping his shoulder away from Frohike’s clutch. “We have to go help her! We have to save her!”

Langly said his name, then grabbed Byers tightly. “Going after her is suicide.”

“We can only help her if we’re alive,” Frohike agreed.

And so Byers stood, watching the black car go until it was gone. He could do nothing but stare for a moment, tears forming in his eyes and threatening to spill over. Then he remembered Susanne’s words:  _ Tell the truth. _

Byers was off again, a man on a mission. Frohike and Langly followed him, looking to their new friend with concern.

“Where to, FCC?” Frohike asked.

Byers looked at them both and smiled. “Let’s go find Fox Mulder.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AO3 hates me?? This was such a pain to post and for what lmao, but it’s okau, trans Byers! Chapter 3 will appear here at some point, and it will be way less episode dependent than this one. Stay tuned!


	3. Get Something Off Your Chest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now that Susanne is gone, Byers wants the truth about everything. He knows just the man to ask.
> 
> OR: Byers comes out to Mulder, who is also trans!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello relatively small group of people still reading this fic! This chapter actually ended up being a little angstier than I intended, but I think it’s still one of the fluffiest things I’ve written in ages. I really projected onto Byers with this one, even more than before, which was fun! I hope you enjoy. Mack—enjoy chapter 3 of our self-indulgent bullshit.

Byers stood at his not yet cleaned-up booth in the middle of the convention center. He’d stood there not 24 hours earlier, waving at passersby and telling them all about the FCC. In the day in between that moment and now, his entire life had turned on its axis. Nothing was the same as before he had met Susanne Modeski, and he suspected it never would be again.

“Do you think he’ll even show?”

Byers looked up from the jar of FCC buttons he’d been fiddling with to one of his new friends. Ringo Langly was reclining in a chair, feet up on the table in front of the booth. He was the very picture of disorderliness, something that normally bothered the hell out of Byers. Somehow, when it was Langly, he didn’t mind as much.

“Doubt it.”

The pessimistic reply came from the man opposite Byers, one Melvin Frohike. He was at least a little more put together than Langly, but still a far cry from spiffed up. He was leaning forward in his own chair, half-asleep now that the intense events from the day before ceased. Relaxing in a near-empty convention center was a bit less stimulating than near death in a secret warehouse. Byers was exhausted too, but he couldn’t leave yet. He had to talk to Fox Mulder.

“He’ll be here,” Byers assured them. In reality, Byers had no idea whether Mulder would show up at all. He figured he would, to check in with the only other witnesses to a top secret government cover-up, but it was more of a hope than anything. If he was being honest with himself (which was already proving more difficult than he’d anticipated), Byers wanted to talk to the agent about something a little more personal than an elaborate conspiracy.

Byers looked down again, continuing to fiddle with the buttons. He’d worn one just yesterday, and the button had represented everything that had mattered to him: patriotism, honesty, and government. He never would have expected that the three things didn’t go together. Now, just the sight of the buttons made him sick.

Just then, a door creaked open. Byers leaped to his feet, Frohike and Langly turning their heads. There in the door, looking a little dazed and confused, stood Special Agent Fox Mulder. He strode over to them confidently, but Byers didn’t miss the way the man’s hands seemed to shake. It didn’t take a genius to know why. Byers couldn’t get the image of Mulder’s chest out of his head, bound tightly with some kind of fabric to make it appear...flatter. There was only one thing that could mean, and Byers could understand from personal experience why that wasn’t something one would want being public knowledge.

At last, Mulder stood before them, looking each of them in the eye. Byers tried to look sympathetic, but his expression only seemed to make Agent Mulder more anxious.

“You feeling better?” Frohike asked.

Byers couldn’t tell whether his comment was sarcastic or not, and seemingly neither could Mulder. The agent’s hands clenched and unclenched at his sides and his jaw tightened.

“Yeah, I am,” Mulder replied as evenly as he could. “Thank you. I just, um…” Strangely enough, he looked at Byers. Byers gulped. Oh God, was he  _ that _ obvious? “I have these weird ideas in my head that I can’t seem to shake.”

“What kind of ideas?” Frohike pushed.

Mulder looked at the three men anxiously and then looked away. “Weird ones.”

“Y-You gonna bust us?” Langly asked, trying to seem tough even as his voice shook. Frohike rolled his eyes.

“I’m not sure yet. I just spoke with my A.S.A.C., and he tells me that Dr. Susanne Modeski is no longer wanted by the FBI. She’s still missing but the case is suddenly closed.”

Byers’s heart beat a little faster. How far did this conspiracy stretch? Deep into the FBI and beyond, it seemed.

_ And now they’re trying to cover it all up,  _ he thought angrily. Well, they weren’t going to get away with it.

Agent Mulder cleared his throat and looked at each of them in turn again. “What I need from you all is to tell me what the hell happened last night.”

Byers met Mulder’s eyes again and sensed the fear there. Suddenly, Byers realized that Mulder was trying to figure out not just what cover-up took place in the warehouse, but how many people he had inadvertently outed himself to. He couldn’t even imagine the fear Mulder must’ve felt in such a situation.

“You want the truth?” Byers asked, squaring his shoulders.

Mulder nodded. “Yeah, I want the truth.”

Byers couldn’t help the smile that stretched across his face.  _ He  _ was the one telling an  _ FBI agent  _ something secret. This was even better than the government job he’d yearned for as a kid. “You might want to sit down. This is gonna take a while.”

Mulder stared at Byers with an incredulous look, turning to Frohike and then Langly. They didn’t give him an inch, though, and went to sit down immediately. Mulder followed.

“The truth is,” Byers began, “none of us is safe.” And so, slowly, the three men began to tell Agent Mulder everything they had come to learn and experience in the day that had preceded. Susanne’s history, the poison, the hotel Bibles,  _ everything. _ Byers made sure to casually mention what Mulder had done the previous night and who had seen it happen, causing the agent to shift in his seat and laugh nervously. Byers told most of story, with Frohike and Langly interjecting at various intervals to throw in a detail or correct something Byers had gotten wrong. They ended with Susanne’s kidnapping, the scene that had been replaying in Byers’s head for most of the morning.

“And it all makes sense now,” Byers said. “Of course they closed her case file. They don’t want anyone finding out where she is and what they’re doing to her.”

“Who’s  _ they? _ ” Mulder asked. With every passing minute, he had seemed more exhausted with this story, but Byers didn’t miss the glint in his eye. Something was drawing him to this, and that alone made him grin.

“The government!” Langly exclaimed, scoffing as if it was obvious.

“Uh huh,” Agent Mulder said. He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms, smirking. “Well, that certainly is a story.”

“What, you don’t believe it?” Frohike questioned, leaning forward.

“Hey, I never said that!” Mulder replied, his smirk stretching into a full-blown smile. “I mean, maybe I don’t, but I’m sure  _ some  _ parts of it are grounded in the truth.”

“You think you’re above us?” Langly asked. “Fucking FBI weasels, asking for our help and then insulting us. Come on, let’s get out of here.”

“Hold on, fellas!” Agent Mulder said, holding up his hands and looking at Langly and Frohike. “I wasn’t trying to insult you, and I’m sorry if it came off that way. The truth is...I’ve been trying to escape lies for a long time, and I can tell when someone is lying to me. You guys...you’re not lying. Or you don’t think you are, anyway. And I wanted to...to say thank you for that.”

Byers’s heart panged as he thought of Susanne.  _ Tell the truth,  _ she had told him, and he was. Byers was typically more of a bend-over-backwards-and-lie-through-his-teeth-to-make-other-people-happy kind of guy, and yet here he was, telling an FBI agent the craziest things that had ever happened to him in the hope of putting the truth out there somewhere. But there was still one more truth to tell.

“In honor of that thanks,” Agent Mulder said, bringing Byers back to reality, “I’m not going to bust you. You’re free to go.”

Langly stood sharply, looking at Mulder with suspicion. Mulder only gave him an amused smile. Langly nodded and headed towards the exit. Frohike did the same, then turned to Byers.

“You coming?” Frohike asked, following it up with Byers’s name.

“Um…”

Byers could hardly hear himself with all the blood rushing through his ears. He could leave now, pretend that he hadn’t noticed the thing on Agent Mulder’s chest, the thing he wanted so desperately on his own. He could try to bury himself again, in his work, his family, his mundane life. Or he could finally take a step towards who he was.

_ I would rather have that suit than this shitty life,  _ Byers realized.

“You go on ahead,” Byers told Frohike. “We can meet at 4 at Brewstreet Café, okay? Talk about next steps?”

Frohike shot him a confused look, gazing from Byers to Mulder and back again, but nodded. “Catch you later, FCC.”

Once he was gone, Agent Mulder looked at Byers expectantly. Byers smiled, completely unsure of how to start this horribly awkward conversation he was almost certain the man across from him didn’t want to have.

“So…” Mulder said, shifting in his seat, “you work for the FCC. Was this a government-related question?”

“No, no,” Byers replied quickly, shaking his head. “No, this was about...last night.”

Mulder laughed anxiously, crossing his arms. “Well, as you could already tell, I don’t remember a  _ ton  _ about last night. You seem to be the expert here.”

_ Not about this,  _ Byers thought. “Uh, well, you see, this was sort of about…when you got drugged, you…took off your shirt…”

Agent Mulder paled. Byers felt his insides squeeze and tapped his hand against the chair nervously. Suddenly, a fear struck him: what if Mulder wasn’t transgender at all? Perhaps it was a compression shirt, or just Byers’s eyes playing tricks on him. Maybe he had only seen what he had wanted to see, and now he was about to recklessly endanger himself for no discernible reason at all.

“And when you took off your shirt…”  _ Oh God, am I still talking?!  _ “...I noticed you had a, um, a… _ fabric _ on your...chest.”

Mulder forced a smile and looked down at his watch, seeming to wish to be anywhere but there. “Oh, that was nothing. Actually, I should’ve mentioned before that my A.S.A.C. has asked me to come to a meeting that starts in thirty minutes, and I really need to go. Thank you so much for your time, Miss—”

“Transgender!” Byers blurted out. Agent Mulder froze. “Are you transgender?”

Mulder opened his mouth, then closed it again. It almost looked as if his eyes were beginning to water, and Byers quickly realized how bad that had come out.  _ Fuck, fuck, not like that. _

“Are you transgender?” Byers tried again, more gently. “Because I...I...I think I am, too.”

Both men let out sighs of relief. Agent Mulder started undoing his tie, laughing a little with the adrenaline that had just rampaged through his body. Byers, on the other hand, was shaking like a leaf. He’d just said it. Out loud. Somehow, hearing the words in the air had made them so much more real. He was transgender. He’d put a label on it. It was real.

Mulder blew out another shaky breath before meeting Byers’s eyes. “What makes you think you are?” It wasn’t a confirmation of whether Mulder himself was trans. He was still on guard, still testing the waters before making a full commitment to outing himself. Byers wondered what awful moment in Mulder’s life had made him realize he had to be so diligent.

“Well,” Byers said, still shaking, “I...um...my friend Carol...no, that’s not right...when I was a kid...oh, God…”

A hand suddenly landed on his. Byers looked up to see Mulder smiling reassuringly at him. “It’s okay,” the agent whispered.

Byers nodded, and then it all came spilling out. He told Mulder about the signs when he was a kid, and then about prom, and then about Carol. He talked about the way he’d buried everything and how Susanne had let it all out. By the end of it, Mulder was squeezing his hand tightly.

“I’m sorry for telling you all of this,” Byers said instinctually. Always apologize, that was one of the first things he’d remembered learning from his father. Things were usually his fault, and so he needed to be the one to remedy them. “And I’m sorry for asking you such a personal question outright. It probably scared the living daylights out of you, and—”

“Byers,” Mulder cut him off, and Byers looked up. He’d been out hardly ten minutes, and Mulder had already stopped using his name. His eyes filled with tears. “You don’t have anything to apologize for.”

“I...I don’t?”

Mulder smiled. “No. I mean, granted, you phrased your coming out in maybe the  _ worst  _ way possible and you  _ did  _ scare the hell out of me, but given the circumstances, it’s all you could’ve done. I mean, do you really know anything about how to navigate life while being trans?”

Byers blinked at Agent Mulder for a moment, amazed by his comfort level with the subject matter. He was sitting straight up, offering him a reassuring smile while Byers couldn’t even comprehend his  _ own  _ transness. Mulder didn’t even bat an eye, and that alone made his heart swell.

“No,” Byers answered honestly. “Like I said, I always meant to ask my friend Carol, and then I just...didn’t.”

“Well, then, allow me to educate you,” Mulder said with a grin. “Ask away, sir.”

_ Sir.  _ Byers’s draw dropped. He had never, not once in his  _ life,  _ been called “sir” before. And he fucking  _ loved  _ it. “Oh, God, okay, um...how did you know?”

“The same way you did, really,” Mulder replied. “I always hated dresses and pink and everything like that. I mostly hung around guys when I was little, except for my best friend, Phoebe. And then one day it came to a head and I chopped all my hair off.”

“And your parents were okay with it?!” Byers asked, shocked.

Mulder laughed. “Hell no! My father wouldn’t even look at me for a week. My mom went to bed sobbing, for Christ’s sake. No, it was a disaster.”

“Oh,” Byers said. For a brief second, he’d seen a future where his father was miraculously okay with who he really was. Now, it was gone again. “I take it your parents didn’t take your coming out very well then.”

Mulder let out a long breath and ran a hand through his hair. His brow creased and he frowned, and Byers thought he noticed Agent Mulder’s eyes glisten with tears again. He pretended not to notice. “No, they didn’t take it very well at all. My mom...well, we still talk a lot, but I don’t think she’s ever called me by my real name once. She’s always raving about how I stole her daughter from her. And my dad...we haven’t talked since I left for college. Not in any real way, anyway. He congratulated me for making it into the FBI a few years ago, but since then…”

Byers felt like he’d been dropped from a thousand feet. Losing his father would be terrible enough. He’d grown to respect the man as his hero (and refused to admit it was out of fear), and the idea of never speaking to him again was unimaginable. But losing his mother...she had been there for him through everything. She had protected him from his father when Bertram had been at his worst. She had always been Byers’s rock, his closest friend, the person who understood him when no one else could. Trying to imagine his mother resenting him from killing her only daughter and never accepting him felt worse than death.

Mulder seemed to notice his panic, because he reached out and squeezed Byers’s hand again. “Hey. I want you to know that it was worth it.”

“How?” Byers asked, the pain making his voice crack. “How can losing your whole family be worth it?”

Mulder stared directly into Byers’s eyes, the same way Susanne had the day before. He seemed to see Byers in a way that Byers couldn’t even see himself. “If I hadn’t done what I did...I honestly don’t know if I would be here right now.”

Byers shook his head, pulling his hand away from Mulder’s. “Well, you see, it’s not like that with me. I’m fine with who I am right now, I don’t need to go through with this.”

“Byers…” Mulder said softly, gripping both of Byers’s shoulders and forcing him to meet his eyes again, “are you happy? Right now, in this moment, are you  _ you? _ ”

_ No.  _ He didn’t even have to think about it. His whole life, he had  _ never  _ been him. Byers wasn’t even sure he knew who  _ him _ was. Yesterday with Susanne and Frohike and Langly was the first time he’d caught even a glimpse of it. Susanne wouldn’t want him to lose it again. How could he tell the world the truth if he couldn’t even tell it to himself?

Suddenly, Byers began to cry. He shocked himself; he never cried at anything. But Mulder didn’t seem to mind at all. He leaned over in his chair and wrapped Byers in a tight hug, rubbing his back gently.

“This is all normal, Byers,” Mulder said. “You’re normal, it’s okay. You’re gonna be okay.”

After a couple of minutes, Byers finally calmed down. He reverted to simple sniffles, rubbing his eyes to try to dry them while Mulder looked on calmly. Once he read the situation as safe again, Mulder spoke.

“You asked me all the tough questions first,” Mulder said with a smile. “I didn’t even get the chance to tell you all the good things.”

“Go on, then,” Byers said. He’d known Agent Mulder for something like a day, but he already felt as if the man was a close friend. He hoped that one day, he truly would be.

“So, this  _ thing  _ on my chest. It’s called a binder. It makes you flat, but you probably figured that out already. I can get you one if you want.”

Byers was shell-shocked again. Yesterday he couldn’t even admit to himself that he was trans, and now his chest was going to be flat? “I’ll have to think about it,” he forced out, his brain going at a hundred miles an hour.

Mulder nodded. “There’s also testosterone. I get an injection once a week. That’s why I look and sound like, well, me.”

“You can do that?!” Byers exclaimed.

Mulder laughed again. “The government is hiding more from you than just schemes to poison the population. Wait until I tell you about top surgery.”

“Top surgery?”

“Breast removal.”

“WHAT?!”

Byers managed to fill the several hours before 4 o’clock with a million questions for Mulder, each more enthusiastic than the last. Fear for the future was still weighing on Byers’s mind, but now it wasn’t the only thing he felt. There was hope, too, the chance that he might work this whole gender thing out. Maybe one day he could be exactly like Fox Mulder. And maybe when he saw Susanne again, he would look the way he was supposed to.

One thing, he was sure of, though: he liked being called Byers a hell of a lot more than his first name.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yep, that was that! Stay tuned for when Byers comes out to the Lone Gunmen in the next chapter!

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry this one ended on such a sad note :( I promise that the end of the whole fic will be happy, but for right now, ANGST. Stay tuned for chapter 2!


End file.
